Looking for the Industrialist in You!

Salutations to all. It's been a while since I have posted anything. Things are just very hectic and in my industry (construction), people want to get their foundations in and the building weather-tight before the holidays. It's crunch time in the building material supply business.

I just wanted to point out that our corp is looking for industrialists, like you. Those who like to get their hands dirty in manufacturing and mining. We have opening that need to be filled. If you are a miner and are looking for some people to pass the time with, check out Manu Fortius.

We offer lower taxes, ship replacement on official ops (per doctrine fits), corporate buy backs, regularly-scheduled and abundant ops as well as logistical support.

We are also looking for players of all walks (missioning, PVP, Incursions, etc). We have access to a good low sec pocket and alliance-wide roams, PVP and PVE.

Check out or Forum Recruitment Post on the EVE Forums or talk to us in game.

Points of Contact:
Kasigi Yono
Vexed Nova
Heinrich Skalder

As Months Go By

Over the last few months, I have been working hard behind the scenes in our corp.  Getting "builders packs' together, doing a little mining and working out our capital logistics.  I haven't posted much of anything as time is limited.  We are moving at a good clip, so I am happy to see that we are productive, active and having fun.  We are running regular mining ops, sometimes one every day.  Even I, someone who finds mining dreadfully dull, have been throwing skiffs into asteroid belts.  Our AO's belts are kind of stripped, but we have alternate systems that have large rocks. 

Our corp is growing quickly again and we are looking for players of all sorts, but really pushing for miners.  If you are interested in joining an active corp, check us out Eve Forum Recruitment Post.

Pheobe has brought a very welcome change to invention, but also some drawbacks.  Being able to queue up multiple invention runs on one slot is really great for the inventor.  As long as you have enough datacores and runs left on your copies, you can use one slot and stack up days of invention runs at one time.  The drawback is the increased demand on datacores.  Multi-sell is also a great addition.  Overall, I am pretty happy with the Crius and Pheobe patches.

I look forward to more and higher quality content from CCP with their accelerated patch schedule.  Hopefully it will bring in new players (and keep them here) and pull back some of the veterans who have left for one reason or another.  

We have started to see some returning members from years ago.  That is good. 

Until next time, fly safe-ish.

Path's to Success (of an Industry Corp) Part 1: Have a Plan

In the past I have chronicled my experiences as a CEO of an industrial corp.  I decided to step away from being a CEO, but joined up with my former directors in our current corp and I have taken on the mantle "Director of Industry".  We have been growing steadily and we keep people activly involved in the corp's success.

How do you run a successful industrial wing and keep people involved?  Well, there are many cogs to the machine.  I will make this a multiple-post series, so check back often.

Here are some general guidelines to get the ball rolling.  Note, this is mainly from a high sec perspective.  Unsecured space brings on an additional slew of questions.

[Step 1] Have a plan.  

I can't stress this enough.  Out of all the things you do, this is probably the most critical.  You need to have a framework you can hang all the pieces on.  Think of it as a foundation.  A fundamental piece of the whole operation.  Do you want to make ISK by corporation mining ops or do you want those to fund your manufacturing?  Do you want your manufacturing to be the main source of revenue?  Do you want to put all your eggs in one basket and focus on T2 or T3 manufacturing?  Hulls or Modules?  Do you want to buy your manufacturing materials from the market or set up a moon?  What do you do in times of war?  These are just some of the questions.  You might not think of things until you are forced to make a choice.  War Dec's can have a huge impact on your activities, but so can supply and demand and market warfare.  Here are a few bullet points you should ask yourself when developing a strategy.

• What should your main source of income be?
• What can your supplementary income sources be? [ore/mineral/ice/composite/etc] sales?
• How are you going to supply your demands of?  [minerals/ice/pi/composites/etc] 
• By what means will you acquire your list of demands? [mining/moon harvesting/revenues on market sales/wholesalers]?
• How will you involve your corporation members?
• What steps need to be taken in the event of a war dec?  
• How do you want to model your divisions of labor?
• What are your priorities? 
• Do you want to rely on repeat business?
• Do you want to undertake marketing your manufactured goods to specific entities or just dump them on the market
• Where should you focus your attention (go from broad scope to a specific area or specialty)?
• Do you want to set up a POS or use NPC stations?
• Do you want to have access to Low/Null/WH locations or just strictly high sec?
• Security at the pos?

This is by no means an all-inclusive list, but these are some of the fundamental questions that should be answered before you decide to take the plunge. 

For an example, here is what we do:

• Main Source of Income: Manufacturing > Sales
• Supplementary income: Ore/Mineral surplus sales and PVE taxes (missioning mainly)
• Supplies (highest utilization to least): market buy orders, market sell orders, internal corp member buyback, donation mining ops, wholesale trade mailing list, other industrial contacts)3
• Corp Member Involvement: I have started what I call "Builder's Packs".  I make a blueprint copy for the required number of runs I want built, set the blueprint copy and any associated material requirements in a specific corp hanger floor in the array required at the POS.  I then send out an email to our manufacturing mail list with what is there and on a first come, first served basis, the prints are used by the corp member and the goods pop out when they are done.  You can also use the activity level of those who help for a rewards program.  Win-Win.  Also, corp-run mining ops, mission running, incursions, etc.
• War Decs: THEY WILL HAPPEN.  You need to be prepared.  Hauling and mining are soft targets.  Those will be a primary target for the aggressor corp.  Put out an email with all the things that you don't want to see and the things that individual members can/need to do.  Keep that email handy.  You will use it a lot, unfortunately.  If you have a POS, get those defensive modules turned on.  You should get a list of those who can man POS guns.  Make sure your tower is set to "attack if at war".  Take out anything that you can't afford to lose (capital BPO's, spendy ships in the maintenance bay, minerals, modules, etc).  If you are in low/null/wh space, this is critical as "capital support" may be called in.  Make sure POS fuel and Strontium bays are full.
• Divisions of Labor:  The larger the corp, the more there is for one person to handle.  That's where directors and managers come in.  You don't need to make everyone a director and that is the surest way to corp theft.  However, you can assign people who are interested to a "junior management" position.  We have someone running mining ops and overseeing the corp ore bank.  Members are always looking for more to do, so if someone is interested, why not give them a little rope?   Roles, that needs to be a carefully thought out consideration however.
• Priorities:  Keeping members engaged, active and happy.  They are a meaningful part of your corp and they are always eager to help and do more.  Use that.  Make enough ISK to cover expenses and provide profit.  Reroll the revenues into more of what you do (reinvest capital).  Support the alliance with ships, modules, ammo, etc.
• Repeat Business: When using the market or wholesale mailing lists, the journal tells you who is buying.  If you see someone buying a lot of your goods, send them a message.  They may be interested in buying direct from you.  This has a bunch of advantages.  Higher (more specific demand), cut out sales and market fee taxes (for both parties), cut down on the time it takes to extract the capital from your manufacturing (quicker returns), networking (providing lasting partnerships with people who are good at what they do).  You kind of need to be a salesman.  It's different when you deal with a specific person than it is selling to the market with no face/name.
• Focus:  When manufacturing, we focus on high volume/moderate margin T2 items.  T1 items have an intrinsic low ISK/moderate to high volume, but the item list that is most profitable (and I'm still talking low 10-20% margin markups are very slim.  I don't like to keep all my eggs in one basket.  The market is fickle and it ebbs & flows.  It's like a 401k mutual fund.  Diversify where possible.  That's how I roll.  Others may argue otherwise.
• POS: We have POS/Lab/Assembly Arrays .  The change in Kronos made it a viable venture to move as much industry to the POS as possible.  There are benefits, like reduced times, lower costs, etc.  
• Unsecured space Access: We have access to low sec.  This works out well because we can mine low sec ore, have a good market for marked-up goods and other possibilities.  It is not necessary and you might not use it all the time, but it's certainly a bonus if you wish to exploit it.
• Security: Minimum time in corp to use POS.  Strict access to POS hanger divisions.  Minimal roles.  This can be very cumbersome, but you have to deal with it head on.  There isn't a sure way to eliminate risk but if you compartmentalize it, you can limit your exposure to loss.  CCP really needs to fix pos/corp management roles.  They suck.  I know; dead horse.

That is kind of my overview.  It's a list based on my experiences and others might do it differently and be as successful if not more.  It's a balancing act.

A Day in the Life of an Industry Director

Sometimes, I wonder if all it do is dictate things and sit in stations.  I'm a director mind you, so that's all part of the job.  EVE is a wonderful masterpiece (even with it's many flaws).  In general, members of a corp lose the forest for the trees.  My experience as a former CEO and as a director has led me to believe that for us [directors], it is quite the opposite.   

In general, I get to log in for about 4-hours a day during the week.  Weekends, my playtime is kind of scattered and unpredictable.  When I do log in, I am pretty much either at our POS, a market hub or in the NPC station in our HQ system.  I am so busy setting up production plans, copying blueprints, running invention, planning future orders, gathering raw materials, moving inventory to where the alliance or corp needs it, watching the market,  and setting up contracts.

Someone in corp joked, while I was out mining, that he had found a rare Vexed alt out in an asteroid belt.  To be honest, I don't get out much.  There is a lot going on and I don't have a whole lot of time to do things like mission running, exploration, PVP or incursions.  That is fine.  I'm not complaining.  Sometimes I wonder if I could do more.  My daily RL is pretty busy, so I do what I can, when I can.  It works.  

Here are some of my activities (as generalized above)

• Take my activity plan (if I have time during the day) and start to work out the details
• Hit the POS, set up inventions, blueprint copies, move materials & blueprints into the Builder's Pack hanger.
• Send out emails to our production mail list for Corp building
• Complete jobs
• Go through alliance doctrine to create manufacturing plans
• Move manufactured goods to our low sec station
• Move manufactured goods to our market hub
• Grab building materials from the market
• Set up the component production runs (for T2 construction)
• Grab PI from my planets
• Filling Corp member requests for blueprint copies
• Setting up skill training plans
• going over our budget
• Adjusting market orders
• Setting up buy orders for minerals, composites, PI
• Researching blueprints
• Fielding questions from members
• Making contacts with other corps and alliances
• Scouring the Bulk Wholesale list for deals
• Answering PM's from corp mates, readers of the EVE Industrialist.  
• Reading EVE Mails
• Work on out-of-client things such as making graphics for the forums, spreadsheets, EVE COST production queues, posting on our forums, reading EVE Online Forum posts

That's pretty much the majority of my activities.  If I get some free time, I will mine, PVP or run missions.  Some of these pieces fit together and you can attempt to multitask, but a lot of them require your full attention.  There is always something to be done.  It's pretty damn close to a part-time job (though I average about 30-35 hours a week working in or on EVE-related things.  35 hours in the US is considered full-time.  Just saying.

So, if you don't see me in space, just know that I am hard at work regardless and as always, fly safe-ish.

EVE COST - Web-based Industrial Tool

CCP has made some serious changes over the last few "patches" and one of the side-effects from the industry overhaul was that third party programs like EVE Isk/Hour have had their functionality decimated.  Zifrian, who publishes EVE IPH has been working hard on updating his industrial tool, but the changes were so profound that he has to put A LOT of time into the program to get it working correctly again.  This is something he does in his spare time, and when you work a full time job, time is at a premium.  Fear not, I have complete faith in him and you must all be patient.

I've been using a lot of graphite, paper and keystrokes to do my inventory post-Crius, which is fine, but my desk is a mess.  There is an alternative that is very interesting.  It is a web-based industrial tool, very similar in capabilities to EVE IPH.   The webtool is called EVE COST and is maintained by Acid Kanshi.  It is designed to work in the in-client browser, but also works just as well in a browser (without the autolink functionality).

You can find it here: EVE COST

I'm very impressed with this tool and I will be cutting my teeth on it over the next few weeks.

There are some really nice features.

• you can create manufacturing plans, queues and compile shopping lists for your manufacturing orders.
• you have a full swath of industrial activity tools: research/invention/manufacturing
• API functionality
• you can set up a warehouse, with your inventory
• easy cut and paste parser for rolling your inventory into EVE COST
• manage inventory costs / add and subtract inventory quickly / store prices for your on hand inventory

Here is the excerpt from the site:

What is EVE-Cost?

EVE-Cost is a third party web based tool for a game called EVE Online. EVE-Cost main focus is to help ease industry management in EVE.

Since EVE-Cost is a evolving project, there will be new features every now and then.

Some of the current features.

- Manufacturing calculator with profit calculations

- Research time calculations for blueprints

- Invention calculator with chance percent and blueprint cost calculation.

- Reprocessing and Refining cost calculators

- API fetching in industry jobs, wallet journal, wallet transactions for Character keys and industry jobs support for Corporation keys

- Warehouse feature to keep track of your items with prices and automatic warehouse update according to wallet transaction fetching from API

- Shopping cart feature for building bigger shopping lists with manufacturing calculator and Queue for managing multiple shopping lists at a time

- Time interval based wallet journal and transactions financial reports

Please post feedback to this EVE topic or send Acid Kanshi EVE-Mail in-game. In-game chat channel: EVE-Cost

Re-Hash

You know, I recently went through my DVD's and pulled out a few that I hadn't seen in quote some time.  Some of them were pretty dated.  Ghostbusters, Robocop, etc.  It is not just a Hollywood thing; remaking older versions of movies.  The gaming industry has been doing it for years.  Even board game companies like Parker Brothers and Milton-Bradley do it.  It's no surprise, when once it was a cash-cow, perhaps soon it shall be again.  In my experience, very few remakes are worthy of the same pedestal as the original, but such is life.  In movies, the technology changes are not as pronounced as in the platform spec changes on say, computers.  I mean sure, they can dust off an old celluloid film reel and and some new-aged CGI (and Lucas, if you ever do that again, I'll beat you with my Chewbacca action figure), but overall, the update isn't that much more impressive.  I would venture to guess, the PC rehash would be quite a different story. 

Where am I going with this... Yes, computer technology.  It has advanced sooo far over the last few decades that classic games like X-Wing Vs Tie-Fighter, Privateer,  Freelancer, and of course Wing Commander (et. al.) could really do well with a well-made revival.  I'm partial to X/W - T/F myself, but there are many other fine candidates.  Doing a remake in a current-generation engine would give me a wood.  I've been waiting and waiting.  I would donate my kidney for a well-done and thorough remake of the Tie-Fighter series.  I hope someone out there has it on their to-do list.  Maybe Disney (don't hit me) can make something happen.  

Anyway, this was just something that popped in my head today.  I figured I would let it spill out on to my blog.

Module Tiericide

Today, CCP released a new DevBlog outlining the changes they are making to bring the module meta down to a more unified/simplified state.  These changes will be coming in Oceanus on September 30th.  In ways similar to what they did with the hull classes, they will make modules more cohesive and give the capsuleer a bit more choice to strategize their fits.  Modules will follow a more distinct path instead of everyone just fitting META 4 (when they can afford it and when they haven't the skills for T2 modules) and the rest being left to rot.  I think they change will make it easier for newer players to be able to fit their ships (as long as they stop fail-fitting), but the implications on the marketplace could get drastic.

Although all Meta 1-4 "named modules" drop from NPC's, lots of people have invested heavily in the buying (or looting) and then reselling Meta 4 modules.  Up until now, there was a generous margin of profit to be made in doing so.  The negative to the tiericide is that Meta 4 modules will probably drop in value by a fair margin.  I do believe the Meta 1-3 (current system) modules will go up in value, but not enough to cover the loss in Meta 4.  While Meta buying and reselling will still be profitable, I think a lot of people will take issue with the punch to their wallet.  As I stated, I believe that the other Meta items will go up in value a bit, so there will still be profitable transactions, but when you start messing with the marketplace, folks be angry.  

You can find the DevBlog here: Rebalancing EVE One Module at a Time  

Until then, buy safe-ish

Moving Right Along

One of the forum banners I've created based on a lava planet

A few big changes.  We have left the sanctity of Sinq and moved to Amarr space to better fit in with our new alliance.  Oh, we have parted ways with Space Weaponry and Trade (amicably) of course.  Things are going pretty well.  I still don't have all my personal stuff down there and I need to move my PI from our Old, Old AoE.  I never moved it to Croleur.  I am looking forward to getting our toes wet in Low Sec.  It opens up a few opportunities for our corp that we didn't have being part of a strictly high sec alliance.  We are also now in a coalition, which is something I am also looking forward to.  I've never been in a coalition, so the new opportunities do excite.  

We have our manufacturing and research equipment set up and are quickly getting back to our industrial roots.  We are going to force a market hub in our area for the coalition to be able to reship quickly without having to run to a market hub.  While I don't necessarily like having inventory sit on the shelves, it is for the greater good, so I can live with it.  I have been manufacturing T2 hulls and modules for marketplace and wholesales, and that has gone well.

I haven't mined in over a year, so I am going to get back into running mining ops and a more regular basis.  I think I really want to persue the low sec mining with Ventures and Prospects for smaller corp ops.  I am also going to try to get larger alliance ops with probably Procurers and Skiffs.  I want to gather and compress low sec ore for our capital programs and also work to make connections with null alliances to supply compressed ore.  The changes in refining in the Kronos made compressed ore more critical then ever.  You are not able to use t1 modules as "mineral compression vessels" anymore, so in order for null alliances to get enough minerals for capital production, they either have to mine the area themselves (time consuming and more dangerous) or get it from a high sec supply source.  I think it is a good niche market especially if you can go direct to the end user and cut out the market bullshit.  

There isn't really much else in EVE that has garnered my attention.  There was a Dev Blog (I think last week) that detailed some invention/reverse engineering changes (sometime in the near future), but I've already covered that.  I try not to get pulled in and caught up in all the politics; I'm all set with that.

I've been making corp banners for our forums and forum signature images for members.  I am new to Corel (I haven't done any graphical stuff in about 7 or 8 years, so it's been enjoyable getting the creative juices flowing once again).

Another banner image I've created

Oceanus (the next patch) is due out September 30th.  The notable changes (but rather irrelevant to me) are cloaking animation changes, new wormhole stuff, new tool tips and notification system.  The French are getting a localization for their client.  Ceptors  & Dictors are getting rebalanced. Named-module changes and changes to the New Eden Store.  Whatever, some people might deem this patch ok.  I'm not too concerned with anything here other than the Ceptor/Dictor change as I plan to get back into PVP in this new coalition.  I've posted about the invention changes, but as far as i know, there is not a fixed timescale yet for that.  What we REALLY NEED are updates to the corp/alliance UI and POS roles.   They have always been FUBAR, but enough time has gone by and enough input from the community, that these mechanics should have been addressed well before graphical updates and changes to the New Eden Store.

I will probably start hopping around on the forums to drum up some blog inspiration.  It's really been a while since I have had a good run of posting.  Life's been so busy planning for a wedding (though my fiance has been spearheading the whole thing) and just the daily grind at work.  Fall is here, but I don't expect my industry to slow down until December holidays arrive.  If the weather is decent, contractors and homebuilders are scrambling to get shit done before Old Man Winter takes a giant shit on the Northeast.  Peeps need their building supplies!

So, until my next post, fly safe-ish.

Dev Blog: Lighting the Invention Bulb

Okay, so I don't have a lot of time.  I am going to run the dirty on this Dev Blog and try to put a highlight on all the major notes.

Here is the Dev Post Link for more Details:  Lighting the Invention Bulb

Invention is changing, soon.  Not in Oceanus, but CCP will do it "soon".

In an effort to simplify the invention gig, they are kind of rolling some aspects together, e.g T2/T3 invention.  

Here are the broad strokes:

• Datacore / Science skill requirements will be adjust so that they are more rounded and different activities spread the datacore usage more uniformly.  One of the biggest examples of what they want to change is the use of electronic engineering and mechanical engineering.  The are scaling back on those requirements in order to utilize things like molecular engineering and graviton physics.  What does that really mean for us?  Well, datacore farming will change to adjust to the new demand.  That will stabilize the price of datacores across the board as less-popular datacores will be required instead of overlooked.  
• The T2 construction skills will be required to construct advanced ships @ level 1.  Some skills required level 4 or 5.  What will end up happening is that you will gain a Time Efficiency bonus for each level, but you will be able to build all hulls at level 1.  The skills will be renamed to Advanced XXX Construction to further clarify that they are not required for T1 hull construction..
• Merging invention with reverse engineering so that the two will be more similar.  This means that decryptors will effect reverse engineering outcomes.  What will also happen is that Data Interfaces (item tools) will be removed from the game.  Meta item use will be removed.  Work Teams will play a role in invention now.  The invention formula will change (which I am not drawing out here).  So the good is that decryptors will effect the ME/TE on T3 reverse engineering.  Having work teams will effect invention ME/TE as well.  
• Invention Success will now be similar to crafting in some MMO's.  The higher the success rate, the better the item will be.  In short, here is what CCP is planning:
• • Success (Exceptional) - ME 2 and TE 3 bonus
  • (Great) - ME 1 and TE 2 bonus
  • (Good) - TE 1 bonus
  • (Standard) - no bonus (ME 2 / TE 2)
  • Failure (Standard) - 50% change datacores will be returned
  • (Poor) - 25% change datacores will be returned
  • (Terrible) - 10% 
  • (Critcal) - 0%
• Base chance % tweaks 
• • Current 
  • • Modules / Ammo - 40% base chance
    • Frigates, Destroyers, Freighters and Skiff - 30%
    • Cruisers, Industrials, Mackinaw - 25%
    • Battlecruisers, Battleships, Hulk - 20%
  • Proposed
  • • Modules, Rigs, Ammo - 40%
    • Frigates, Destroyers - 35%
    • Cruisers, BC, BS, Industrial, Mining Barges and ORE Industrials 30%
    • Battleships, Industrial Command - 25%
    • Capital, Capital Industrial, 20%
• Blueprint Copy Invention change will use only one run of the copy.  So a 100 run BPC gets your 100 invention chances.  So what they want to do is make it so you can run as many jobs as you can using one click.  Let's say you have a ten-run copy.  You can now set up (if you have the skills for it) ten invention chances using that one blueprint copy, instead of using ten blueprints and running one invention on each.  

This is pretty much it in a nut shell.  I like most of these proposed changes.  I know some people might take issue, but overall, its not bad.  My ultimate favorite is running multiple inventions at one time instead of me clicking 44 times.  My mouse will thank me.

What Have I Been Up To?

I really haven't had a whole hell of a lot of time to do much, especially blog.  The summer is a crazy time for my industry.  Planning for a wedding, the usual summer activities and various other RL events have kept me from really doing all the superfluous things.  I've been putting some serious time into War Thunder, Space Engineers and some other fun games, but I have largely been auto-piloting in EVE.  

When Crius hit, I moved all of our manufacturing assets to our HQ system (from a few different stations on the other side of Sinq), but I really didn't do much once the move was over.  I played around a bit, testing the industrial changes and coming up with some game plans.  Considering Crius was a game-changer, I have had to rethink all the activities I had planned.  On top of that, I was waiting for the market to settle and the pricing of manufactured goods and the inventory people had on the market to whittle down.  

What I have been doing is a ton of invention.  I admit, I like the new system (for the most part).  What I like is that you no longer need a shit-ton of copies to invent from.  Each attempt uses only 1 run from the BPC.  Let's take for example, a Gyrostabilizer I BPC of 300 (max runs).  Instead of inventing and getting (possibly) 1 10run T2 BPC and using up the entire BPC, now you get 1 10 run T2 BPC and the T1 BPC now has 299 runs left.  You can use that BPC to manufacture 299 Gyrostabilizer I's or invent 299 more times.  I think that is pretty great even though I spent most of the months leading up to Kronos running off massive amounts of BPC's.  Big deal, right?

The way things work now is pretty stream-lined.  That is good.  The interface looks pretty and the workteams and system index mechanic add some strategy to your activities.  The result is a lot more depth in the manufacturing and research system as a whole.

I've also started manufacturing components, T1 goods and T2 goods.  Overall, I like how that works as well. 

Things that I don't like are on the short list, but I feel it detracts from the UI change.  Having to reload the UI every time you select a new item is kind of Busch League.  I don't mean having to close it and reopen it (which ironically sometimes I have to do), it is just that every time you click a blueprint, the UI loads the information.  At least your previous choice of blueprint remains persistent.  If you select a new blueprint item, and using corporate hangers, you will have to select the install location and the export location once for every type of blueprint you use.  Yeah, not a big deal, but if you forgot, you have to search and hope that no one also used the 1st hanger division.  I also noticed that if you have the UI open and use another alt to move stuff to different arrays, you have to close the UI and reopen it so it updates the inventory on the array.  Again, annoying.

Other than that, its a pretty good change.  Hopefully you guys are having fun with it as well.

I'm not Dead

With RL issues, the recent string of War Decs and not really relevant topics, I am kind of on sabatical as the CEO states.  I'm probably going to PVP for a while.  It's been a long time.

Fly safe-ish.

Defiance: First Impressions

tldr Defiance is like Tabula Rasa mixed with Warhammer Online that is great for casual players. I think you will enjoy it if you give it a shot.

Impressions

Defiance is an MMO FPS made by Trion Worlds for X360/PS3/PC that pairs with the show on SyFy channel by the same name. From what I understand, the world of the game will follow the story arc of the show in some way, although I'm afraid I do not know the details.

I guess we should start by asking: what is Defiance the TV show? Well, I don't know either, so that's that. So many shows come and go on SyFy I can't keep them all straight. All you need to know about SyFy is Farscape and BSG, am I right?

From the opening intro, it looks like the show is set in some near future where Earth has become a battleground. Humans have spaceships and there are cat-people aliens that look like Ron Perlman playing the Beast from that Beauty and the Beast show in the 80s. Like most aliens, they seem to only differ from people because they have unusual facial features.

The story in the game is that you are an "Ark Hunter" and you are helping some mad archaeologist/scientist guy, who looks like Lex Luthor or Captain Picard based on what angle the camera is viewing him, find some kind of alien device. It's kind of hard to explain because of two reasons. First, I don't really care. Second, the entire exposition takes place in probably one minute and then your ship explodes and you are left stranded on Earth.

Not such a bad place to be stranded I guess.

So you are an Ark Hunter, and you start building your character by choosing some background like "Machinist", "Soldier", etc. Honestly I have no idea what effect choosing a background has, since it does not start you in a particular place on the skill tree or unlock any special abilities.

Your character has this cybernetic implant with the convenient acronym EGO. Part of this implant is a Cortana-like character that acts as your guide and tutor. Damn what an original feature. I've never seen anything like it. Seriously, do they think I am so lonely that I need someone talking to me all the time and cheering me on? The voice says things like "You're really catching on this quickly aren't you?" and "Great work!" Maybe I shouldn't complain though. After all, it's better than Destiny where that damn robot just trolls you non-stop like your average reddit user.

The game is an FPS (third-person) as I mentioned earlier. The mechanics are pretty simple to describe. You can equip two weapons and a grenade. You have a special EGO-ability, one of either Overcharge (more damage), Cloak, Decoy, or Blur (move faster and do more melee damage). Unlocking an ego ability unlocks adjacent passive abilities on a grid. When you unlock one of those adjacent passives, more passives next to that on the grid will become available for unlock. It's kind of like the sphere grid from FF10. So you get to equip your EGO ability and a couple of passives. As you level up, you can upgrade your passives which will increase their effectiveness.

If you use a particular weapon for long enough, it will level up and get some better stats like bigger magazine size etc. You can also buy scope and magazine upgrades to your guns.

I know that all this sounds fairly standard stuff, but honestly it works pretty well, and I have enjoyed my time playing so far. I think one of the reasons for this is that there isn't really a level system. The passives make you better in some way, but everybody in the game can play together from the first moment you enter the world which is cool.

As far as how the game feels, it is remarkably similar to Tabula Rasa. Assuming you played TR during the 5 minutes it was online before the servers were shutdown, you will know whether you like that style or not.

So what do you actually do in the game? You are thrown into Old Russia, ... I mean, sorry, um, future San Francisco. Apparently lots of strange mushrooms and things grow in the future, so the landscape is not recognizable. You are on the map with everyone else playing the game, and you either go do your main story quest, random events you find on the road, or "Arkfalls", which are like major attacks that require lots of players to defeat. These "public quests" borrow heavily from Warhammer Online (RIP) which was really a trailblazer in this area of cooperative gaming. You can also do PVP, although I have not tried that.

One feature I really like about the game is that if you are working on your quest and some random guy wandering around comes to help you, you both get rewarded. It promotes cooperation and that's a good thing.

I can't say there is really any point to the game except to go around killing aliens and demonic robots and bugs. It's mostly about getting new items and tailoring your character to support your style of gameplay. It doesn't sound that deep, and it's not really, but it is actually surprisingly refreshing and fun to play. You get new weapons and EGO points just often enough that you want to keep grinding for that next unlock or that next cool weapon you might get.

Doldrums

It has been awhile since a meaty post, but we are under our 3rd war dec, so I have been focusing a lot of time on Space Engineers, Prison Architect and RimWorld.  All great games. You can get them on Steam.  I have kind of hit a lull in EVE and I should be getting back soon once the dust settles.  Until then...Fly Safe-ish

POS Management - An Exercise in Nighmares

Imagine running an industrial division with about two dozen corporation members utilizing the facilities.   Then imagine having so few options to pass out roles that it becomes a nightmare trying to balance hanger divisions, user groups and theft prevention.  Yes, that is EVE.  CCP has refused to address these issues and with Crius here, more and more people flock to industry.  Why hasn't CCP addressed these issues?  I don't know, but it is has been problematic from the onset of the POS introduction.  The newer players might not realize how difficult it is for the leadership to make the right changes to streamline access.

Here is an example.  With roles, or titles, you can grant permission to people, en masse to be able to use specific offices and thus not allowing access to HQ or other offices.  That is done correctly.  I won't go on a long rant about how the corp role management still sucks, but not having an option to set access levels per POS is just blatantly negligent and an extremely myopic view by CCP.  

I would be happy with the above addendum to roles until the UI can be overhauled.  It is becoming more and more an issue.  While you can set up each structure to be accessible by corp, alliance, fuel tech and starbase manager, it doesn't always work the way you want it to.  My contention is that removing the slot limitation, it does open the door a little more, but certainly not enough.  If you need to run multiple POSs or just have members that want their own spike, its not good.  

While I don't have any other suggestions, the one I have offered above would go a long way to make management a little more tolerable. 

Crius Bug: Research and Copy UI

CCP Logibro put out an note on an industry UI bug where when copying or installing a research job, the UI won't update and the button remains red (as in an invalid action).  Re-clicking the button or doing something to make the UI update will solve the issue for the time being.  The fix is coming in a downtime update.   By the way, I hate how the UI has to update all the time, but hey: Whatever, its still better than before Crius.  So there's that.

You can also check out the known Crius issues in the Crius Issue Thread

Welcome the Newb

I've been playing EVE (with a few extended breaks, since about 2008.  I've been an industrialist, missioner, incursion runner and miner.  I have lived in null and have participated in a fair amount of PVP. I have lived in a wormhole and explored complexes.  I guess the point is I've tried out almost every aspect of EVE.  While there is nothing more pulse-pounding than PVP, I find other aspects of EVE to be more enjoyable as I can do them at my pace.  In PVP, its a matter of finding a target and in Null, you can go a long while before you get someone to commit to a fight (at least in my experience).  

Where am I going with this..Ah, yes.  The new capsuleer.  EVE is not the most user-friendly game.  In fact, when I started, there really wasn't even a tutorial section.  I had to learn the hard way as I didn't join a corporation right away.  I've been ganked, can-flipped, robbed and at the wrong end of the blaster cannon.  I didn't know how to fit a ship or where to make the most ISK / play session.  I did speak with some of those who wronged me and they were happy to point out where I went wrong (and I mean genuinely helpful especially about fail-fits).  I think CCP has been doing a better job at easing in the newbie, but until you are put in a dire situation, you really have a false sense of security.  When you first come to EVE, you probably don't realize (until it's too late) that EVE is all about non-consensual PVP.  As soon as you leave a station, you are agreeing to be attacked.  PVP is the core of EVE and it is what drives the economy and wars.  The player has a huge impact on the game.  I am referring to things like Burn Jita (where people just sit in Jita and gank anything they can) or large scale batters in null over sovereign space (as in the battle for B-R5RB) 

ISK is pretty much your first concern.  It is like water.  You can go without it for a day, but after that, you realize it is the only thing that will sustain you.  ISK is relatively easy to get, if you want to live hand to mouth.  If you want to make serious ISK you have to invest time.  The thing I like most about EVE is that you can train your avatar in real time.  That means you are training while you are not playing.  You skill up skill training queues and you can walk away.  Grinding is one of the things that irk me the most about RPG's.  While you still have to grind missions for ISK, not having your characters skills dependent on your available time to play, it can take a lot of stress off you.  

I know, I am getting verbose.  I should get back on topic.  

If you want to know how to make lots of ISK (without PLEXing), there are some options available.  Some are available right now.  Some will take months to get to the level you need to succeed.  Start with the tutorials.  They give you ships, implants and other goodies.  You get ISK for completing tutorials too!

After that, mining is probably the easiest way to make ISK.  It is probably the most boring, but it is easy.  You grab a frigate, some mining lasers and hit a belt.  While you are very efficient in a frigate, filling your small cargohold and jumping to and from the station/belt, it is lucrative.  If you are serious about mining, I would really recommend training for the ORE mining frigate and work on rounding out your mining skills.  If you are just part-timing it, there are other things that you can train, but most new players hit the belts.  I would stick with Veldspar.  Tritanium is always a good seller.  It is the most commonly used mineral in EVE and in high volumes.  Veldspar takes up the least amount of cargo space of the minerals.  Next bet would be Scordite.  The pyerite you can get from refining it is worth some ISK.  

If you want to forgoe the doldrums of mining, you can train up your combat skills and run missions out of NPC stations.  This is a fun way to make ISK and helps give you an idea of how combat works.  Let me tell you now, PVP is PVE are COMPLETELY different.  NPC's in missions are as dumb as tacks and they are in now way an analog for real players.  Mission rewards and their time bonuses can help fatten your wallet.  Also pay attention to bounty prizes you get from killing NPC pirates.  Those can be very nice.  I would suggest not taking faction missions.  That is, when you are reading the mission brief, stay away from missions where NPC Factions (Gallentee, Amaar, Caldari, Minmatar) are the targets.  You can skip one mission per agent per 4 hours.  If you skip one after that, you will take a standings hit with the agent.  As you do more and more missions, you gain standing with that agent.  After a while, you can get access to Level 2 agents all the way up to level 4.  Also, periodically, the faction that you are running missions for will give you a high priority mission.  If you can complete it, you get a standings boost with the Faction.  This is helpful.  On top of that, doing missions for agents will give loyalty points for the faction that agent belongs to.  You can use them for faction ships, items, implants, etc.  If you want to get a faction frigate, you can use loyalty points to acquire one.  They are much better than the T1 standard frigates and they run for about 20-24 million ISK.  If you don't want it, you can just sell it.

When you get better skills (battleships) and have strong defensive tanking skills (shield/armor), you can try to get into incursions.  The ISK is spectacular.  They are hard to get in fleets, but if you can, you are golden.  You can pretty much print ISK.  You will need a strong skill base, a good ship fit and some luck to get into a fleet.  Incursions are serious business.  I once went to Vegas and sat down at a black jack table.  I hit on a card that I shouldn't have.  People at the table got pissed.  What happened was if I didn't hit, they would have had a better change at getting the card they needed.  Incursions are similar.  They don't want to deal with Noobs.  They are there strictly for the ISK.  

This post is longer than I had planned and I kept it more informational than detailed, but maybe it will give you some direction.  My biggest suggestion for new players is to leave their NPC corp and try to get into a good player-owned corp.  There are soooo many benefits.  If you are looking for a corp, check out Manu Fortius.  We are happy to help new players get on their feet. 

As always, fly safe-ish

Game Review: Star Wars X-Wing: Miniatures

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to be part of a space battle in the Universe of everyone's favorite Space saga, I have a game for you!  Star War's X-Wing: Miniatures.  It is a table top miniatures game where you take the roll of the fleet commander and wage a war against either the Evil Empire or the Rebel Scum.  It is highly addictive and superbly fulfilling.  

On a side note:  The Star Wars franchise has been lacking in the space simulation arena.  SW X-Wing, TIE Fighter and (even) X-Wing vs TIE Fighter were some of the best sci-fi games I had ever played.  I even consider them superior to some of the modern ones.  There was just something special about strapping yourself into T-65 X-Wing with an R2 unit chirping away behind the cockpit or going full deep in a TIE Defender and $^&^&%$ shit up.  I am completely at a loss as to why either of those three games have not been revived and updated.  While XW vs TF wasn't as well received, the expansion pack fixed all of the glaring failures of the original release.  I don't believe there are too many people who have played any of the three that would argue their worth.  With that trip down memory finally at it's end, let's get on with the tabletop game review.

This game is put out by Fantasy Flight Games.  They have been around since 1995 and publish many excellent role playing, card and miniature games including WarHammer 40k..  They manufacture high-quality productions, so there is no need to worry about getting your bang for the buck.  They are a leader in miniatures and have also bough the Star Wars license lending to it's quality and relevance.

The base set (around $30 USD) gets you two TIE Fighters (T/F) and one X-Wing (XW).  This base/core set gives you a rule book, a few missions, a bunch of pilot cards, ship upgrades and all the chips, movement dials, movement templates, etc.  You can play with the core set and still have endless hours of fun.  The ships are a little larger than MicroMachines (if you remember those), and are pre-painted with a high level of detail and superb quality.  They tend to be a bit fragile so proper care and storage are a must.  You also get some flat cardboard asteroids, but you can take and paint some lava rocks and mount them on stands for a really genuine and realistic effect, like we did.  

One of the best parts of this game is that they are always releasing expansions.  They are affordable as well.  Single fighter expansions will run you around $15-20.  Some of the larger expansions can be upwards of $50.    When I say expansion, it is generally a new fighter or other spaceship.  It comes with special pilot cards, sometimes new mechanics and added missions.  They are releasing the expansions at a good clip, so you can add to your set regularly and expand your fun and set up larger and larger battles.  They also have large ships which behave differently, have different upgrades and movement templates.  It's really an epic experience.  

Tactics are a fundamental to this game.  Formations, pilot and ship selections, upgrades and movements are all integral to your success or failure.  Imperials have an advantage of initiative, lower ship costs and speed. Rebels have durability and better weapon systems.  Whichever faction you wish to field, you need a different tactic to have a chance.

There are some included missions but you are free to make up your own missions and even campaigns.  You have the complete flexibility in the mechanics to do basically what you want.  

Each game consists of phases.  In phase 1, each side uses a ship dial (per ship) to secretly select their movements and then places the dials face-down.  Once all the movements have been dialed in, the player with the lowest pilot level (on each pilot card) moves first.  Once a pilot moves, they generally have an option to force an action (whether it is focusing their fire, evading, etc).  Once all movements and actions have been completed, the pilot with the highest pilot level fires (and Han Solo ALWAYS fires first) and you work backwards.  It is possible to destroy a ship before it ever has a chance to fire.  Once the combat phase is complete, the movement phase beings again.  You can bump into ships, losing your action, so proper movement is imperative.  You are not allowed to use the movement templates to see where you will end up.  You have to use your best judgment to get were you need to be.  Flying in formation can be difficult, but it is beneficial to be precise with formations to concentrate fire and maximize your damage potential.  Pilot card special abilities can mean the difference between victory and a rout.

I can't say enough good things about the game.  If you are even remotely a fan of the Star Wars galaxy, like tabletop games or just want to try something different, I HIGHLY recommend getting the game.  I play SWXWM nearly every week with a buddy of mine.  He has a bunch of ships and I have a bunch as well.  We have plenty to do, but I am a sucker for moooarr ships!  Currently, we have been playing with T/F, T/I, T/A, T/B, T/P, Lambda Shuttle, Millenium Falcon, Rebel Transport, XW, YW, BW, and EW.  

Wil Weaton (TableTop on YouTube) did a video with Seth Green and some friends.  You can check it out here: TableTop XWing.  It will give you a feel for the game.  

Again, it's truly an innovative and rewarding gaming experience.  Try it out for yourself.  You won't be disappointed (unless you have no friends).

Impressions of Destiny Beta

Over the last week, Bungie released an open beta for Destiny, it’s upcoming sci-fi mmo fps. I hadn’t heard about this game until the beta was released, but after some coaxing from my friends decided to give it a shot. This is a record of my impressions and experiences.

The first thing you get to do is watch a video that sets the scene. The very beginning of this scene is a reveal of the Activision logo. I have an active boycott against Activision products, so basically that turned me off from the game immediately; I know that I won’t buy it ever. Anyways, after my hopes were crushed, the introduction began. Long story short, it’s almost identical to Mass Effect. In fact, I’m sure the last sequence, when the “Darkness” is creeping in from the edges to engulf Earth, is copy and pasted from the end of ME1. I guess this game is part of Activision’s strategy to take some of EA’s market share.

The second thing you will do is create a character. There are three classes and three races. For my race I chose Exo, which is the android race, and for my class I chose warlock which seems like it should be the “mage” class, but isn’t really but kind of is. From what I can tell, most of the difference in the classes is the type of grenades you get and the “supercharge” ability you get. (The supercharge is your ultimate move you get to use every once in awhile.) The customization is pretty good but ultimately meaningless since, when in first person mode you obviously don’t see yourself and are never close enough to others to see their details, and in third person mode you are too zoomed out to see any of the details either. But I guess it’s the 21st century and we have to have customization.

Once you create a character, another cutscene begins in which a “ghost”, which is this floating robot that binds itself to a guardian, flies through the remnants of Old Russia, which looks like any zone from Borderlands, and finds you lying in a scrapheap. Now, let’s talk about this ghost. As you may remember, Destiny is being developed by Bungie, the same people that brought you Halo 1. You remember Halo 1 right? When you followed that damned flying robot that trolled you relentlessly through the exact same corridors hour after hour? Guess what the ghost looks like. Yes, that damned flying robot. Thanks Bungie, you just made me relive my worst emotions and frustrations from Halo. Not only that, but unlike in Halo when at least the robot travels with you for only part of the game, saving you from committing hara-kiri on the spot and preserving hope that maybe he’ll disappear and leave you to shoot aliens in peace once again, the Destiny robot follows you around and talks to you the entire game. I mean, for me that’s enough reason not to play the game.

But I kept going and suffered so that you can hear about what else the game has to offer.

I don’t remember what comes next in the introduction of the Destiny experience, so let’s just jump into combat. The combat is exactly identical to Borderlands, the end. Even the treasure chests look like the chests from Borderlands and have a similar animation when opening. The only major difference here is that when loot is dropped, instead of having the actual gun model or ammo model drop, indistinct white and green squares and ovals of light drop. Damn, that’s some next level technology!

The basic flow of the game goes like this: hang out in the city to buy stuff and identify stuff, then warp directly to a zone to take part in either a story mission, a strike mission (dungeon), or exploration. This idea of having no real travel is clearly WoW inspired and makes me long for the days of yore when there was actually something inspiring about traversing an alien landscape (my heart is with you, Anarchy Online).

So our current strikes against the game right now are Activision, robot, copying and pasting ideas from other games, and WoW-inspired. Hmm, not looking so good.

This game has multiplayer, kind of. The reason I say kind of is that it’s not very meaningful since people just drop in and out of your team at random and nobody really has to cooperate to complete quests or kill bosses, since the enemy AI is absolutely braindead. I mean, this is the 21st century: can we please move beyond Quake 2 AI? Please. I’m begging someone with knowledge of AI to work on this problem.

Here’s a breakdown of the mission types for your reference:

1) story missions: uninspired and repetitive

2) strike missions: map design for the only playable mission was not bad but the bosses take way too long to kill and it’s too long overall. It’s an odd juxtaposition against the easily consumable exploration quests and story missions.

3) exploration: basically there is no exploration involved. Your ghost leads you to quests and you do the quests, in the same zones you’ve been playing for hours.

The enemies in this game are called the “Fallen” and the “Hive”. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. That sounds exactly like Halo. You’re right, it’s exactly like Halo. The Fallen are the weird alien creatures who are all evil of course, but this time around instead of looking unique, they look like either a straight up ripoff of the Tau Empire from Warhammer 40k (GW is the most ripped off company in the history of gaming I’m sure), or space oompa-loompas, depending on your opinion. The Hive are a copy and paste job of the Flood from Halo 1.

Is this really the best Bungie can do?

But the primary problem of this game is the same problem that almost every MMO has: it’s like watching a movie; once it’s over, it’s not relevant to your life anymore. I’m not sure Destiny is even a game. A game is something like chess or checkers that has replay value because every game is different and because it’s competitive. Destiny is like an interactive movie.

Procedurally generated zones would not help either, because that doesn’t attack the underlying problem that it’s just a movie. You play the movie and when it’s over that’s it. Making it multiplayer doesn’t change that fact either.

In conclusion, Destiny is a hodge-podge of every successful alien/sci-fi shooter/mmo of the last decade with zero inspiration and a lot of copying and pasting from Bungie’s previous works. I’m sure a lot of people are going to view this game as the second coming because it has the name Bungie on it and the Borderlands-like loot mechanics are digital crack for those same people. But if you get bored by cliche movies with poorly written dialogue and games with repetitive button pressing, then this game is DOA.

- warcalibre

Researching Crius

I finally had a moment to install jobs into our labs last night.  I was pretty shocked at the new cost scaling.  I have been reading about it but until I actually did some work, I was dismissive.  My eyes are open.

We are in a remote high sec system without any modifiers and I was using the standard labs (the old advanced and standard mobile ones).  Here is what I found during my experience.

If I wanted to research our Orca BPO to level 10 (10% ME) from level 9, it would cost over a billion ISK and take around 216 days.  On a side note: I feel that if you own a POS and do your research there, you should get a base discount.  

Copying blueprints was much more time-consuming.  I guess it was a balancing act to keep the BPC market/supply relatively stable.  Many people ran copies out of NPC stations and those were choked off with extreme lead times and you would have to search low and null sec to find empty labs.   Many people wouldn't do that, so there was an inherent bottleneck/upper limit to the amount of BPC's being made.  Most were used for invention anyway, but it is just my opinion on the change in the lab slot mechanic.

The problem I see is for the new players or those new to blueprint activities.  Those of us who had a large library of researched blueprints are sitting pretty well after the change.  Most of my blueprints were researched well past 10 ME so they all rolled to 10 and I didn't take any hits.  The un-researched blueprints I had, or those I wish to buy will end up costing me a lot.  Here's my take (and I know those of us who have put the time, isk and effort over the years SHOULD have an advantage), but these changes will turn away those who aren't already vested or who wish to break into the blueprint arena.  In real terms, its going to cost new industrialists a lot of ISK to get where they need to be.  If they are going to manufacture (and that would be 99% of those who buy blueprints) then they have to work a lot harder to pay off the research fees before their blueprint starts making them ISK.  We 'OGs' can pluck the research cost out of our manufacturing, giving us an edge in the market (once prices stabilize to the new economy).  

TL;DR: New industrialists might end up being turned off to the industrial EVE.  Not that I mind, it's better for me, but I think what CCP was trying to do was bring new players to the industrial profession.  What is probably going to happen is that they will drive a wedge between blueprints and bittervets.  

What are you thoughts?